First Flight

Well outside of downtown Atlanta lies Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. On this rapidly heating up Saturday morning the airport is alive with activity as people pour out and in on mass. One of those people is a rather disheveled looking Jett Black. Wearing faded blue jeans and a simple grey t-shirt, tugging on his luggage which seems to be missing a wheel he finally forces his way through the malfunctioning automatic doors and into the warm Atlanta air.

He's not alone though. Mind you he didn't come with anyone, but outside waiting for him with a sign that reads JET is Pasquale Semtex, dressed in a button down polyester suit and looking like a hap-hazard southern dandy, who spots one of IWF's newest signees coming out of the arrivals gate and heading in the opposite direction.

Semtex: “Jett! Hey Jett!”

He begins to chase after the slowly fleeing Jett Black.

Semtex: “Hey! Jett Black! Stop!”

Semtex and the camera man hurry themselves along and catch up to Jett only to have Pasquale grab Jett Black's shoulder and quickly find himself in a hammerlock for his troubles.

Semtex: “Hey watch it! Ouch! Let go!”

Black: “Watch yourself, Buster! You can just go running after people grabbing them. You get yourself a real job and stop robbing people at the airport!”

Semtex: “I wasn't robbing anyone! I was trying to get your attention! I'm from IWF, I'm here to meet you, we're rooming together!”

Black: “Oh... Sorry.”

He lets go of the hold and helps Pasquale back to his feet.

Black: “Sorry, I didn't know. No one told me about anyone meeting anyone here or anything.”

Semtex: “Yeah well you're three hours late. You were supposed to get in on the red-eye at six this morning.”

Black: “I kinda over-slept.... Why does your sign say jet on it?”

Semtex: “It's your name, I made it to get you attention, not that it helped.”

Black: “Uh, it's just jet though. My name's Jett. Jett. See, two tees.”

Semtex: “But... But they sound exactly the same.”

Black: “Oh... yeah... I guess they do. Sorry. I just thought you really liked jets or something.”

Semtex: “Come on, we might as well skip going to the hotel then and go directly to the arena. Why didn't you come in last night like everyone else and get a good night's sleep before your first match here?”

Black: “I had the option?”

Semtex: “Well yeah, IWF always picks up the bill for a night's accommodations, it's in the contract, didn't you read it?”

Black: “Not exactly every little bit. I may have sort of rushed it. I was just so happy to be signing to a big time fed.”

Semtex: “So then go rent us a car and we'll get over to the Dome.”

Black: “The Dome? Is that the name of a bar or something?”

Pasquale just gives Jett a look that would seem to suggest that he's grown two more heads.

Semtex: “Is that a joke? The Georgia Dome, it's where you're wrestling tonight.”

Black: “Are you serious!?! In THE Georgia Dome!”

Semtex: “You're in the big time now, Jett. No more bingo halls and armories for you.”

Black: “Flippin' sweet! My first night in IWF and it's in the Dome... All of those people... Man...”

Semtex: “Yeah well... Get your head out of the clouds first and get us a rental car so we can actually get there.”

Black: “Wait, car?”

Semtex: “Yeah, rent us a car.”

Black: “I can't rent a car.”

Semtex: “Why not?”

Black: “I can't drive. At all.”

Semtex: “You can't drive? At all? You're lying. Get the car, we've got to get going.”

Black: “I'm serious. I don't drive. No license. Why don't you just get the car?”

Semtex: “I'm not allowed to drive. There was an incident and now IWF wont let me drive involving one of it's events or other people I work with, or in general really.”

Black: “Well how far is it to the Dome from here?”

Semtex: “It's got to be at least twenty miles. Maybe more.”

Black: “How far is that in real distance?”

Semtex: “Real what?”

Black: “Real distance. Kilometers. I'm Canadian. The rest of the world and I don't know your crazy backwards miles system.”

Semtex: “I dunno... like fifty or something. Maybe eighty.”

Black: “Eighty kilometers? Nuts. We'll never makes it in time!”

Defeated, he takes a seat on the curb in front of the airport.

Black: “This is typical. My first night in IWF and it's a bust. I almost miss my flight, I get stuck in customs, I get in a fight with the door, and now I don't even have enough time to walk the eighty kilometers to the Georgia Dome to make it to my first match.”

Semtex: “Geez... No wonder they call you bad luck.”

Pasquale takes a seat on the curb beside Jett.

Semtex: “We're both going to lose our jobs for this... You know any good indy feds that are looking for an interviewer? I could manage or ring announce or something too...”

Cameraman: “Uh, you guys... I'm just going to call a cab OK?”

Pasquale's head perks up.

Semtex: “That's it! You're a genius! You do that! Call us a cab!”

The cameraman, who for some reason tagged along to document this meeting between room mates, sets his camera on the ground to film some solid filler footage of Jett Black's worn Puma's and Pasquale Semtex's Penny Loafers while he called a cab to get all three of them to the Georgia Dome for the show.

Semtex: “Oh hey, I got a good idea...”

Black: “What?”

Semtex: “Just follow my lead.”

He picks up the camera, putting it on Black.

Black: “What are you doing?”

Semtex: “So Jett Black, the IWF world wants to know, are you ready for your first match?”

Black: “Uh...”

He stands up.

Black: “Absolutely, I'm ready for anything!”

He grins.

Semtex: “So you're confident that you can handle the two Matt's?”

Black: “Darn right! All I've seen out of those guys so far is a whole lotta talk! This Matt Young, well Matt Young's got nothing. The biggest claim to fame that guy has is having a replica of the IWF World Championship! What kind of great achievement is that huh? You can't just grab a belt and be the champ Matt Young! People like you are the biggest kind of losers there are! You think you can just buy success, but it doesn't work like that. It's not the belt that we all want, even though it's all shiny and nice, it's the title behind it. We all want to be the World Champion, not for the trophy but because winning that title means we're the best in the world!”

Semtex: “Nicely said!”

Black: “And Matt Rydell? Well I'm not sure about Matt Rydell. He says he was hyped up, but I've only ever seen his name on the booking sheet. If he was ever any good than everyone's forgotten all about it. Maybe he wasn't that good anyway right? He was good enough to get a job here, but pretty soon after all the pressure got to him and he fell apart. Why should this time be any different?”

Semtex: “What makes you any different? You haven't even had a match here yet.”

Black: “Hey, this isn't about me Mr. Negativity!”

Semtex: “What do you think of his T-shirt, Luck is for Losers?”

Black: “Yeah well... Bad Luck is certainly for losers. I'm that bad luck Matt and you're going to be the loser!”

Semtex: “That doesn't even make sense...”

Black: “It doesn't have to, this is wrestling! All that matter is that Matt Rydell thinks luck is for losers, so he'll see what he thinks when he has to face 'Bad Luck' Jett Black and comes face to face with bad luck personified!”

Semtex: “What about your partner, Vagabond?”

Jett takes a moment to think it over.

Black: “Well to be honest I'm pretty glad he's my partner. I don't really know what to think of him at all. He's weird. He's got this whole dark poet, I wish I was Edgar Allen Poe thing going on, so I have no idea what's going on in his head. I'm not really sure if I can trust him or not, but he does seem pretty good in the ring so who knows. Maybe we'll just click being so different and it'll be like synergy and all that stuff and we'll come out victorious. I don't know what's been going on with him, but I know my bad luck has to end sooner or later, and there's no time like right now, right here in IWF!”

Semtex: “Ha! You're so old school. That's such a corny wrestling interview Black, are you seriously like that?”

Black: “Like what? I thought that was pretty awesome. I'm impressed with myself.”

Semtex: “OK, whatever, if you say so. Let's go check on that cab... How do you turn this thing off.”

Instead of a nice fade out, thanks to the shakey jostling around of Pasquale Semtex, we get some random shots of the ground, shoes, his suit, Jett's jeans, Jett's shirt and the Atlanta sky before either of them can actually figure out how to get that red light to turn off. Thankfully for their bank accounts Jett Black's luck doesn't prevail and the camera makes it through the whole ordeal unbroken.